The Ducks fly South
by Exotic Rooftile
Summary: My idea for a chapter 27, after Holden comes out of hospital or the psychiatric unit. Please read & review


Title: The Ducks fly South

Rating: PG-13 for some language, but if you got through the book, then there's nothing new here

Summary: My ideas for a chapter 27. Set post treatment, but like the rest of the book, the timeline's a little vague.

A/N: I'm aiming for style here more than plot, so tell me if it works. R&R please.

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**Catcher in the Rye Chapter 27**

**The Ducks fly South**

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Not long after I told him that story about the last few weeks, the doctor said I could go home for the last bit of the holidays. Boy, it really annoys me when someone does that. When one day they say you're practically dying and the next day they say you're fine to go home for the rest of the vacation. That stuff really annoys me.

Anyway, it was this one day, and DB had come to visit us. He said it was to see old Phoebe in her Christmas Pageant, but I knew that mother had asked him back from Hollywood to see me. When I asked him, he said it wasn't. I could tell it was though. This day, he'd taken me and Phoebe out. We were going to go shopping, but first we were walking to this little café on thirty-first street that DB really liked to have some lunch.

I didn't really like it, the café, if you want to know the truth. It was supposed to be all cultured, a proper English café but it wasn't. Sure enough, there were white linen tablecloths like you get in England, and there were cucumber sandwiches and tea on the menu, but it wasn't really English. Under those English tablecloths they have the same tables they use in the café at the Art Museum. I know, I've seen them. Besides if the cucumber from the cucumber sandwiches was really English then it would have gotten mouldy while they brought it all the way over from England, It's a helluva long journey. Cucumber goes mouldy quickly, and then the sandwiches would have had mouldy cucumber in them, which they don't, and then nobody would eat them because they didn't want sandwiches with mouldy cucumber in them. So the cucumber wasn't really English. They probably got it from just outside of New York, on one of those little farms they have.

So after we'd finished our cucumber sandwiches which weren't really English at all, DB said we should go Christmas shopping. Boy, was I glad to get out of that phoney café. Only, after we'd been walking for a minute it started to rain like it was going to drown you. Everyone on the street practically ran to get under cover, into these goddamn awful stores that only sell the kind of Christmas decorations that fall apart if you so much as breathe on them. Old Phoebe was different though. She just did up her jacket and strolled real casual into this book store like she was going in there anyway. Boy, was she smooth. That nearly killed me, the way she just strolled into this store being all smooth about it.

While it rained, we looked around the store. It turned out that the store actually sold the kind of books we have to read for our English class. DB kept fooling around with Phoebe, telling her that when she has to read these books for English class, like we have to, she'll be able to read D.B's books. He was only fooling though. DB doesn't write that kind of stuff. There's a lot of crap in the books we have to read for English class, and DB doesn't write that crappy stuff unless it's for a movie. Then you have to write a lot of crap if you want to become famous.

In the end, I bought this book, _The Cat who went to Heaven, _for Phoebe. Well, really DB bought it because I haven't got any dough at the moment. Not since any of that crazy stuff. But he said I can give it to old Phoebe for Christmas anyway. That's the kind of thing DB will do for you. If there's something you want to buy for someone but can't because you haven't got any dough, he'll buy it for you and then let you give it to them anyway. He's a real swell guy like that. The book I'd bought was really too young for Phoebe now, but I bought it anyway. I bought it because Allie used to read it to her a lot before he died. She was just a little kid, younger than she is now, and she never used to let anyone other than Allie read it to her. We had a copy once, but it started falling apart because Phoebe read it so much. One day, when the goddamn _cleaning lady_ came in, she threw it out on account of how Phoebe read it so much it was falling apart. Phoebe cried for two whole nights after that. So I bought her another copy, and by that time it had stopped raining so hard outside.

We still had a few blocks to walk to get to Bloomingdale's, the department store Phoebe wanted to go to. All the way there, she did this really cute thing where she wouldn't step on any of the cracks in the sidewalk. It reminded me of this boy I knew at Pencey, Marcus Levyson. What he did was, he would never step on any of the red lines painted on the gym floor. There were these lines on our gym floor to mark out all the different areas of the sports courts. Even when we had to climb up ropes in gym, if he had to climb one above a red line, he wouldn't just jump down. Instead, Marcus would make the rope swing so he wasn't above the red lines anymore, and _then_ he'd jump down. Everyone thought he was a crazy sonuvabitch, but I used to think that just because somebody doesn't want to step on a red line doesn't mean they're not terrific at something else. Anyway, that's who Phoebe reminded me of when she was walking to the department store without stepping on the cracks.

When we got there, Phoebe made us walk round all three hundred departments in the store. Then, DB bought her some hair ribbons in all these different colours and patterns so she can have a different one for each outfit. She looked terrific in them. He also got me this jacket while we were there. Boy, it sure made me look suave as hell.It was a greeny grey colour, and it had these pockets that really looked like they _belonged_. You take most jackets that are meant to be suave as hell and their pockets are really ugly and stand out from the rest of the jacket. On my jacket though, they didn't.

After we did the rest of our Christmas shopping, old Phoebe said she felt tired, so we took a cab back to my parents' apartment. I gave the driver our address, and he drove off.

'Hey, boy? Do I know ya?' the driver asked, practically turning right round to look at me when he spoke. He could probably have seen right out the rear window the way he was turned round so far.

'No' I replied quickly, hoping the stupid bastard would turn back around.

'Right' he grunted. He glanced back at the road in front of him before looking back at me. 'Hang on. You're the boy with the ducks, ain't ya?'

I started to remember. 'Horwitz?'

'Yeah. Listen boy, I asked me friend 'bout them ducks, y'know?' It really irritates me when someone asks you if you know something when they already know that you don't. I mean, if you did, they wouldn't be telling you again. I glared at the back of Horwitz's head, since he had finally decided to look at the goddamn road instead of at me. That felt better, I don't like it when someone looks at me. Without waiting for my answer, Horwitz carried on, 'Yeah, and y'know what 'e said?' Another pointless question. The sonuvabitch was really getting to me. ''E said, the ducks fly south. Like them colourful birds you get in the zoo. They only come 'ere in summer. 'Cos the lakes down south don't freeze up. 'E didn't know 'bout the fish tho'. Said they prob'ly breath thro' their pores, like I tol' ya'

'But the colourful birds in the zoo don't disappear at winter' Phoebe pointed out. That girl's real smart like that sometimes. She really is.

'For chrissake, not the _ac_tualcolourful birds from the zoo. Just ones like 'em'

I just ignored Horwitz. I wasn't getting into an argument with the crazy bastard again, not after last time. He'd just tell me about those goddam _fish_ again, when all I wanted to know was where the _ducks_ went. He was a crazy bastard, I swear. Besides him being a crazy bastard, we were practically at the apartment anyway, so there wasn't really any point talking to him. I just ignored him, and climbed out with Phoebe while DB gave the guy some dough.

It was the new elevator boy in the elevator today, the one that let me up to see old Phoebe that night. Boy, was he dumb. Anyway, we were in the elevator, on the way up to my parents apartment, when I realised I hadn't called Jane Gallagher since any of that crazy stuff yet. I hadn't called her on account of how I was in hospital and all, and then on account of how I didn't know what to say. I wanted her to come round Christmas Eve, but I'd told old Sally I'd go to hers. I didn't really want to, but I'd said I would. You can't not do something you've promised to do. Still, I realised I hadn't ever actually called Jane. Maybe I'll give her a buzz tomorrow.


End file.
